The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has ruled that party-list nominees who are holding public appointive office shall be considered resigned upon their acceptance of their nomination. But nominees who are holding elective office may continue to hold office even after the acceptance of their nomination, the Comelec added.

At the same time the Comelec ruled that the one year prohibition from being hired or rehired in a public office after their party-list organization fail to secure the needed votes to qualify them for a seat in the House of Representatives shall not apply to said nominees.

The prohibition is contained in Article 9, B, Section 6 of the Constitution, which provides that “No candidate who has lost in any election shall, within one year after such election, be appointed to any office in the government-owned or controlled corporation or any of their subsidiaries.”

The Comelec, currently under the leadership of Commissioner Rene V. Sarmiento as Officer-in-Charge of Acting Chairman, pending the arrival of Chairman Jose A.R. Melo from Europe, has required all groups accredited to participate in the party-list elections to submit to the Law Department not later than March 26, 2010, a list of not less than five nominees each from which the representatives shall be chosen in case it obtains the required number of votes.

The Law Department, in turn, is required to prepare the list of nominees within five days after March 26, 2010 and shall publish said list in three newspapers of general circulation.